Gaming in a time of Lockdown - Solo play DBA Romans v Sassanids

As I can't play with an opponent during the current Coronavirus lockdown here in the UK I have printed off the solo expansion rules for DBA from the Fanaticus website.  These are intended for use with DBA2.2 but only need a couple of minor tweaks to adapt them to DBA3.0.  These concerned force selection and ensuring forces maximised the support rules.  DBA 2.0 amd by default DBA2.2 has rear support but no side support and that needed correcting to ensure solid bows and solid spears selection reflected the change.   I have since also added some options for garrisoning cities and forts as well.  To be honest the game I played didn't really benefit from the changes I made but they are there for next time.

In this game a Late Imperial Roman force faced an invading Early Sassanid Persian force.  It was the first outing for the Sassanids and my first attempt to use elephants.  As you will see I have learned a few things about their use.  The two armies consisted of

II/69(a) Early Sassanid (Aggressor)
General (Cv), 5 Asaravan (Cv), 1 horse archer (LH), 1 elephant, 1 Daylami (4Ax) and 2 Levies (7Hd).

II/78(a) Western Late Imperial Roman (Defender)
General (Cv), 1 Equites (Cv), 1 Cataphract (4Kn), 2 Equites Illyricani (LH), 2 legionaries (4Bd), 3 Auxilia Palatina (4Ax), 2 Light Infantry (Ps).

The solo rules require the player to select his 12 elements before  working out the options for the non player (let's call that the AI from here on in).  The rules require you to dice for the options but have modifiers to each di roll to create a balanced force related to the troops chosen by the player.  For example it has a modifier to increase the chance of taking pike elements in pairs as they get a rear support bonus which of course requires two units of pike.  You  then decide on the terrain, if the AI is the defender there are rules to determine the AI's choices and placement of the terrain.  Next you deploy then again the rules select the AI formation, group make up and deployment.  this can be a bit random and I will add a rule to avoid anything other than LH being out on a limb. They then go on to determine if you are facing an aggressive, neutral or defensive AI player.  That result will influence the tactics available to the AI each turn as the game unfolds.  There is an option to allow the AI choice of tactic to be overturned by the player if the AI seems to be making a choice which is particularly poor, but it isn't an automatic ability there is a dice roll with a small chance of the AI tactical choice being kept.

As the defender I had the choice of terrain items and placement.  Given that the Sassanids are cavalry heavy and had an elephant I decided to close the terrain down as much as possible and to try to force the elephant to attack where I wanted.  I took the obligatory pair of plough, a difficult Hill, a Bog and a wood.  The dice were reasonably kind and allowed me to load my left flank with terrain but placed the wood to my right.  With Hindsight I might have done better to select an enclosure rather than the second plough as that is always rough going.

I deployed with the Auxilia on the hill covering my left flank, cavalry and cataphracts to the centre of my line (as I expected the Persian cavalry to attack down the central avenue of good going) then the Legionaries lastly the Psiloi with and Light Horse stacked up in column at the end of the line.  I had split the Sassanids into two cavalry commands, as required by the solo rules, an infantry command containing just the levy and an elephant command with Nelly and Daylami support.  The General I kept as a separate command to be able to move him to join the best positioned command as the game developed. The dicing for the Sassanid deployment weighted the centre of the battlefield as expected but put the Levy out on the Sassanid right behind the bog.  The Elephant formed the centre of their line with the Daylami directly in front and the General sat slightly behind.  To it's right are three Asaravan Heavy Cavalry with Light Horse in the second rank.  On the other flank are the Cataphracts then two more Asaravan.

The starting deployment, Romans to the right

Turn one saw the Romans adjusting their line to place the Auxilia more squarely onto the hill with it's rough going and to bring the Light Infantry towards the centre of the line to face the elephant.  I should have remembered that in DBA any light troops or Auxilia  can quick kill Elephants.  The Auxilia would have been a better match up than Psiloi.  On their right they start to make a flanking move around the woods.  The sassanids throw for cautious tactics and only get one pip which means they can only move one element and choose to advance their right hand cavalry group.

End of turn 1, you can see the Roman line being sorted out, lucky the Persians were not more on their game!

Next turn the Romans get 3 pips and use them to continue to sort out their line, they don't have enough to move the Light Cavalry though.  The Sassanids roll cautious again but at least have a decent pip score and are able to move forward almost everywhere.  Who didn't move, yes it was the Levy!

Turn two ends and the Sassanids have started to roll forwards

Turn 3 the Romans are now fairly comfortable with their formation now and have enough pips to start the Light Horse moving again.  The Sassanids roll cautious for the third consecutive turn and again roll a single pip.  they choose to move the elephant group up, which means that they have no counter to the Roman Light Cavalry. still it's going to take a while to get anywhere dangerous.

Turn three the Romans reversed their line slightly and the Sassanids move the Pachyderms forward

By turn four things are starting to look interesting!  The first shock of the game occurs the Roman Psiloi take a chance and engage the Daylami who are exposed ahead of the elephants.  They roll well, have an overlap and the Daylami roll very badly and recoil.  Except they have a big problem, a big gray trampling type problem!  They are in base to base contact with the Elephants and can't recoil through them.  1-0 the Romans.  I told you I learned a few things about using Elephants.  On the Sassanid turn they roll aggressive and get good pips.  They throw cataphracts at one of the Roman Psiloi separate  two Asaravan from their left to attack the Roman Light Horse and charge the right wing Cavalry into combat against the opposing Roman cavalry group.  However the Psiloi are having an outstanding day and force a recoil on the cataphracts.  The main cavalry attack doesn't create much traction either with recoils going both ways but no kills.  It's only over on the Persian left where a Roman Light Horse is trampled under foot due to being unable to recoil that they taste success.  1-1 at the end of turn 4

Those Psiloi are tougher than they look, the Legionaries look on awestruck as they repel a cataphract charge.

Turn 5 sees it all go wrong for the Sassanids.  The Romans throw their cavalry forward and create an overlap with the auxilia who come down off the hill as there is nothing threatening their front.  Both in the Roman bound and then the Sassanid one they Persians have terrible dice rolls and in three combats are doubled by the Romans on their right wing.  4-1 to Rome and game over.  Even had the cavalry fight gone differently next turn would have seen a guaranteed Persian win over the Roman Light Horse but Roman flanking attacks going in against the Persian line at either end.  It would have probably stretched the a Romans slightly but still be a 4-2 win.

The end, there is a striking absence of Persian cavalry at the far end of the line!

The solo rules are OK although the mechanism for tactical options could be better and the way to fix that is with better descriptions of the available options and perhaps some different options, or possibly a grand tactical stage before the game commences as part of the deployment phase.  Either way I'm pretty sure I could beef them up.  I made some poor tactical choices such as not allowing room for the Daylami to recoil and not being more cautious (hard to imagine that with the Sassanid dice) in preparing attacks.  In effect  the Sassanids lost in the approach phase of the battle.

I know an awful lot of people really like DBA but the more I play it the more I see some weaknesses that really should be addressed.  It has it’s strengths too of course, it plays quickly, the rules come with full army lists and decent explanations of the mechanisms in action.  What I don't like is the lack of distant shooting other than for Bows and Artillery, this really hampers bow armed cavalry armies like the Sassanids who would have stood off and shot, evading local counter attacks wherever possible and coming straight back to shoot again.  I understand that the game tries to simulate that at a very high level but it just doesn't have the feel of those tactics.  For the standard game the other serious limiting factor is the 12 element basic army.  I accept that it also allows players to build an army without too big of an outlay but it feels constricting.  Big Battle DBA offsets that to a large extent but still only allows the limited choice across the original 12 elements.

Overall I prefer the two follow up expanded variants to the system DBM and DBMM with their more detailed army lists and extensions to troop types.  I also like ADLG which has mechanisms which cover distant shooting, although it has accuracy issues with it's army list composition.  I am hoping the updated version later this year will have been improved in that respect.

All that said though when I want a quick game that lets me get the toys on the table DBA is a good shout and the solo play modifications do make you think about tactics more than would otherwise be the case.  I'm wondering if I could adapt them to other related games.

So thats week three of lock down done, stay safe everyone and try not to go stir crazy.